Dive Brief:

• Seattle-based e-retailer Zulily Tuesday reported a Q1 revenue miss that bettered last year’s Q1 report by 29% but badly missed expectations; revenue for the quarter was $306.6 million but expectations were for $313.5 million.

• The company said that the second quarter would continue the slide, with revenue somewhere between $285 million to $300 million, also well below expectations of closer to $361.7 million. The retailer says revenues for the year will reach some $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, while Wall Street analysts were looking for $1.5 billion.

• Zulily also announced the appointment of Brian Swartz as SVP and CFO. Swartz, who comes from Apollo Education Group, will join the company June 1. 

Dive Insight:

In announcing his move to Zulily, Brian Swartz noted “Zulily has been incredibly disruptive in the e-commerce space, and I'm excited to join a company that has fundamentally changed the way people shop.” But Zulily of late has been more disrupted than disrupter. 

Fatigue with the flash-sales model that Zulily employs seems to be moving on to extreme weariness, and other aspects of the model — like its supply chain and membership approaches — are now looking like liabilities. 

While other retailers are speeding up their supply chains, for example, Zulily, like many flash-sale sites, has waited to buy merchandise until orders for it came in. That’s changing, but it’s unclear how much or how effective the changes will be.